2011 Top Ten of Conflict for Mathematics
- Randomness
- In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events is predictable. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7
- Pythagorean theorem
- In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem, or Pythagoras' theorem, is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides. This theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the legs a, b and the hypotenuse c, often called the Pythagorean equation
- Speed of light
- The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. Its exact value is defined as 299792458 metres per second. According to the special theory of relativity, c is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter, energy or any signal carrying information can travel through space
- Richter magnitude scale
- The Richter scale – also called the Richter magnitude scale and Richter's magnitude scale – is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 paper, where he called it the "magnitude scale". This was later revised and renamed the local magnitude scale, denoted as ML or ML
- Triangle
- A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted
- Golden ratio
- In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities and with
- Prime number
- A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, 1 × 5 or 5 × 1, involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product in which both numbers are smaller than 4. Primes are central in number theory because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every natural number greater than 1 is
- Roman numerals
- Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers in this system are represented by combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet. Modern style uses seven symbols, each with a fixed integer value
- Trigonometry
- Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. The Greeks focused on the calculation of chords, while mathematicians in India created the earliest-known tables of values for trigonometric ratios such as sine
- Calculus
- Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations